Fadhlallah issues edict against ties with Israel

Fadhlallah issues edict against ties with Israel: "Fadhlallah issues edict against ties with Israel
Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:51:33 GMT


Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadhlallah
Lebanon's leading Shia cleric issues a religious edict forbidding any kind of normalization of ties with Israel.

Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadhlallah issued the religious edict (Fatwa) declaring, 'The normalization of ties with the Zionist enemy in any form is prohibited by Sharia (Islamic law).'

'We confirm that the fatwa against normalization applies to every Muslim,' he said in a statement issued on Sunday.

The 73-year-old Ayatollah added that the whole of Palestine within its historic borders is an Arab and Muslim territory and that no Arab leader has the right to relinquish even an inch of land that belongs to the Palestinians.

The fatwa was issued as US Mideast envoy George Mitchell visits Israel to try to resume stalled peace talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

Mitchell is pushing the Arab leaders to normalize relations with Israel and is also pressing Israel to halt the construction of settlements in the West Bank.

Fadhlallah's statement comes at a time when several Arab governments have indicated that they would consider steps towards normalization but only if Israel agrees to a complete halt to settlement construction.

From all of Israel's Arab neighbors, only Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties with the country."